Carruthers used a chainsaw to sever the trunk while Graham filmed the act on his mobile phone, in September 2023.
Passing sentence at Newcastle Crown Court this week, Mrs Justice Lambert said the pair were motivated in part by ‘thrill-seeking’.
Legal tree specialist Sarah Dodd, founder of Tree Law, said: ‘Listening to the National Trust's victim impact statement, where they gave a voice to the tree, brought home how deeply this act affected people around the world.
‘The Sycamore Gap tree wasn’t just wood and leaves. It was a marker of memory, history, belonging. The judge stayed within sentencing guidelines, saying there wasn’t sufficient reason—despite the overwhelming public emotion—to go beyond them. She focused on the tree’s significance as part of a UNESCO heritage site, not its intrinsic worth. That felt telling.’
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